TetFund: Between expansion and status quo

On Monday, June 6, stakeholders in the education sector thronged the venue of a public hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education and Services on the amendment of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund) Act to include colleges of agriculture and private higher institutions of learning, among other issues, to benefit from […]

On Monday, June 6, stakeholders in the education sector thronged the venue of a public hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education and Services on the amendment of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TetFund) Act to include colleges of agriculture and private higher institutions of learning, among other issues, to benefit from the fund. Our correspondents examine the issues raised.
 The TetFund Act, as currently obtains, allows public universities, polytechnics and colleges of education to benefit from the pool of intervention funds provided under it.
However, at the public hearing of the committee, chaired by Rep Aminu Suleiman (APC, Kano), the Academic Staff Union of Research Institutions (ASURI), comprising of colleges of agriculture and other research institutions not captured under the TetFund Act, made a case for the expansion of the fund to include them.
 On that day, ASURI members stormed the National Assembly in large number with some of them brandishing banners with inscriptions such as “TetFund Act now to change Nigeria”, “70% of Nigerians are farmers yet colleges of agric are denied funding”, “Fund research now”, “No research fund, no development, no future” “Universities are saturated with TetFund, while Colleges of Agriculture are dying”, among others.
The Secretary-General of the association, Dr. Theophilus Ndubuaku, said their demand was simple; that colleges of agriculture and research institutions be included to benefit from the fund.
He said the situation was so bad for them that “most of the technologies generated in research institutes are largely funded by the researchers with their personal resources, because if they do not conduct research, publish and sponsor their training for higher degrees, they will stagnate and perish."
He argued that, “Nigeria is endowed with an array of research and development infrastructure that cover almost all sectors of human endeavor. It is an indisputable statement of fact that the reason Nigeria has remained under-developed is because past leaders have not had the political will to adequately fund the many research and development institutions.
“We implore the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as a major stakeholder in nation-building, not to denigrate the complementary roles of other institutions in the educational sector, especially the research institutions and colleges of agriculture, where the academic staff are holders of higher research degrees that are equivalent to those of the universities.
“Our message to the House of Representatives is to include research institutions and colleges of agriculture in funding by TetFund, otherwise the diversification programme of this government will be defeated," he said.
Some of his colleagues at the hearing said there was no way the country’s educational sector could develop optimally if some higher institutions of learning are treated with disdain.
They said they have suffered neglect over the years, and that their non-inclusion in the fund was akin to adding insult to injury, saying the name ‘monotechnic’ only obtains in Nigeria as it is non-existent in English language.
Other stakeholders who made a case for their inclusion in the list of beneficiaries of TetFund were the owners of private colleges of education.
However, TetFund, through its acting Executive Secretary, Malam Aliyu Na’Iya, opposed the position of the other tertiary institutions not captured in the Act.
Na’Iya said expanding the intervention mandate of the agency to other tertiary institutions would jeopardize its tangible impacts in project execution and research-based supports.
"The existing Act should be allowed to exist as it is. If amended, it will result in the eroding of the intervention function and impact of the fund," he said.
He said the various intervention projects by TetFund have positively enhanced the mandates of Nigerian tertiary institutions to impact knowledge and promote research, arguing that the agency has no single abandoned project in any institution, but that including other institutions could lead to that.
The committee’s chairman, Rep Suleiman assured them that the committee would do a thorough job by critically examining all memoranda with a view to strengthening the Nigerian education sector.
"Any time these proposed legislations take effect, the nation’s institutions of higher learning will be made to efficiently and effectively deliver on their mandates," he said.
 The committee chairman also outrightly rejected the calls for the inclusion of private colleges of education in the list of TetFund beneficiaries.
He said: "There’s no way we can allow the federal government to spend public funds on private institutions, unless and until such a time when a law is made as to give conditional grants to such private entities. They are private business ventures owned by private individuals and should not be funded by government."
Some members of the committee were of the view that instead of the inclusion of colleges of agriculture in the TetFund programme, it would be good to establish a separate fund to finance them.
There were also submissions by some stakeholders supporting an amendment to upgrade the Nigeria Police Academy Wudil, Kano State to a degree awarding institution.
The committee, however, gave the ministry of interior three weeks to submit its position on the matter.
"We are urging you to speed up the process of the bill so that we don’t continue to operate in conflicts," Rep Suleiman said.
While the colleges of agriculture and other research institutions wait anxiously for the outcome of the hearing, there seems to be no hope for the private colleges of education.